1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a cable assembly, and more particularly to a Serial ATA cable assembly with small size.
2. Description of Related Art
Currently, Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (Serial ATA) connectors are only single position seven pin connectors. Today, not only are processor speeds increasing, but the amount of space that a computer fits into is shrinking. Therefore, the motherboards or printed circuit boards (PCBs) that hold the electronics and other devices for a computer have limited space. In a computer which may contain multiple hard drives, multiple Serial ATA connectors and Serial ATA cable assemblies may need to reside on the printed circuit board and occupy the space of the computer. This takes up considerable space, depending on the number of hard disk drives and associated Serial ATA connectors.
Therefore, there is a need for integrating overall Serial ATA connector interfaces into one interface that saves computer space and simplifies the assembly and manufacturing of the Serial ATA connector. U.S. Pat. No. 6,746,255 B1 discloses such a Serial ATA cable assembly. The Serial ATA cable assembly includes an insulative housing defining a plurality of passageways, a plurality of contacts retained in the insulative housing, a plurality of standard Serial ATA cables and a plurality of single wires located between two standard Serial ATA cables. However, the passageways are only defined in a longitudinal wall of the insulative housing, and the plurality of standard Serial ATA cables and single wires are arranged in a side-by-side so that the Serial ATA cable assembly has a relatively long length in a longitudinal direction, thus the cable assembly will still occupy larger valuable space in the motherboard.
Hence, it is desired to provide an improved cable assembly to avoid the foregoing drawbacks.